


Revival

by teacett



Series: How We Love [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Keith gets a hug, M/M, Reunions, adam feels guilty, and shiro is just happy to be home, difficult conversations, friends supporting their big gay leader, plus some sex just for kicks, the reunion we all desperately wanted and didn't get
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 02:37:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacett/pseuds/teacett
Summary: Adam laid beneath him, hands carding through diamond-bright hair, and wondered how he’d ever thought he could live without this man.(Alternatively, what might have been if Adam hadn’t been expected to fly out and get himself blown up for a half-cocked plan that never could have worked.)





	Revival

**Author's Note:**

> Adam’s death hit me hard and the representation in this season was laughable, so I ended up throwing this together in the span of a few hours to make myself feel a little better. 
> 
> I don’t know what the writers were thinking...killing off half of our gay protags, making the only lesbians sadistic villains, potentially killing them too, not to mention the unrelated issue of Netflix providing an in-menu option to completely remove any hint of romance between Shiro and Adam (under English 2, I believe).
> 
> I’m holding out hope for season 8; maybe the execs just had a metaphorical gun to the staffs' heads. Only time will tell whether we end up with single (or dead) Shiro and a bunch of forced straight couples. It'd be great if they didn't feel the need to pair everyone off Harry Potter style, but we're playing the waiting game now. :’)))
> 
> All the drama aside, please enjoy.

Adam wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing at first. The strong jaw was familiar, dark eyes shining with the same contemplative light, but so much had changed. 

Iverson had given him a strong pat on the shoulder and left them to it, closing the office door behind him; he had a decent understanding of the situation, but they were adults and they could handle this themselves. 

Silence weighed heavily between the two and Adam searched the face he knew so well as though he’d never seen it before. Despite his apprehension, he was the first to speak.

“You were dead.” He mumbled thickly, arms hanging uselessly at his sides. Shiro’s expression softened minutely, and he didn’t refute it.

“I’m here now.”

Adam swallowed, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check. _Stay cool. You’re okay._

“How, exactly?” 

When Shiro offered a mild, hesitant smile, he could feel his brain flooding with serotonin, heat swirling through his skull at the sight.

“It’s...it’s a long story.” 

A pause, the room around them silent as deep space.

“I’ve got time.” Adam confirmed.

* * *

Shiro’s scent had changed in his years spent dead, or a dead as he possibly could have been to those on earth. It was darker now, richer. Aged. Heavy with undertones that simply hadn’t been there before Kerberos. 

They were long past their cadet days, shyly groping around in the dark and speaking in hushed voices hours after curfew. They’d seen war now, seen death, lost people, nearly lost one another. 

The company was something neither of them would ever take for granted again. 

Adam arched up into the way Shiro’s remaining hand slid down over his front, parting his uniform and drawing soft sounds from deep in his throat. Low murmurs of ‘I missed you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ fanned out over heated skin, and the younger of the two wasn’t sure in that moment whether he could ever truly forgive himself.

He’d abandoned his partner, and now here he was, back from the dead and glowing like a damn _saint_. Teeth grazed his jaw and his breath hitched, brows drawing together. 

“I’m here, I’m real. This is real.” Shiro reassured against his cheek, pressing a kiss there and slipping his hand beneath the small of a lean back, drawing Adam down lower on the standard issue Garrison mattress. Adam wondered if those words might have partially been for himself, something to ground him alongside the gravity he knew his lover had missed.

Chapped lips met again and again as their clothes fell away, tumbling over the edge of the bed and draping over pillows. When his partner’s mouth found his throat again, guilt and shame stole Adam’s voice. Emotion choked him. 

The former paladin, observant as ever, pulled back just enough to gaze into hazel eyes clearly. He didn’t speak, a hesitant sort of understanding warming his expression. The darker man nearly resented him for it, would have if not for the emptiness he’d felt in his absence. Shiro had always seen through him so easily.

Adam sat up, staring up into Shiro’s face as they moved together. One tanned hand rose between them before the larger pilot was on his back, snowy fringe a mess and face warm with affection despite their misguided goodbyes.

“Let me,” Adam’s voice broke, unspoken words trailing behind like a gauzy wedding veil. _Because I wasn’t there when you needed me most._

Shiro’s expression read just as well. 

_I forgave you a long time ago._

“Com’ere,” The older man whispered, teeth sinking delicately, hopefully, into a full lower lip. Adam pressed himself into his lover’s lap, let their bodies mesh as they kissed. Their hips pressed together and Shiro gasped, the man atop him swallowing thickly at the sound and rocking down more firmly in hopes of being graced with one more. 

How he’d missed that voice. 

“Love you.” Adam breathed, nuzzling Shiro’s jaw as he ground into his lap. The man echoed the words in a hiss, body alight from the years without stimulus beyond pain and loss. 

They moved together slowly at first, minds more occupied with one another’s presence than merely finding release. It wasn’t until Shiro took hold of his hip and bucked that Adam had to stifle a low moan into his palm, bringing his other hand up to slip his fogging glasses from his face and toss them onto the bedside table. 

The now much larger, stronger man released an airy laugh, the sound cut short when Adam rolled his hips just right, his ass cradling the curve of Shiro's leaking cock and pressing pre-ejaculate from the head. 

“God,” Shiro groaned, voice woven with a primal thread. “Adam, baby…” 

The sound of his name alone was enough. Adam slid down the length of his partner, nipping and kissing as he went. It had been too long without this, the intimacy, the trust.

Adam wanted it back. Needed it like the air in his lungs. 

When he finally took the tip of that familiar cock into his mouth, it felt so right that the brunet had to fight the tears threatening to slip past his lashes. With a subtle sniffle and a gentle stroke of Shiro’s flank, he relaxed his jaw and relished in the sighs and moans he drew from that powerful body. 

They took their time, narrow hips rolling like lazy ocean waves as Adam took him deep, their hands curling and intertwining only to separate to clutch at hair or muscle. The telltale twitch of strong thighs and the grunts from above were enough encouragement that the younger hadn’t lost his touch. 

Ten minutes in and Shiro was finally beginning to unravel, slurred words slipping out here and there when Adam worked his mouth over the flesh just right. Just as he was drawing back to press his tongue against the pouring slit, Shiro inhaled sharply and dropped his hand to wrap firmly around the base of his thick cock. 

“Not like this,” He exhaled in a rush, forehead glimmering with barely-there sweat and eyelids dipping low with need. Adam pulled off with a rough sound of approval, gaze lowering to admire the spit-wet member before climbing up and kissing Shiro hard, messier than before. His jaw ached as their mouths fell open.

Neither of them had ever been particularly patient when it came to these things. 

Adam slipped a hand behind his pillow and down in front of the headboard, withdrawing a half-full bottle of lube even as Shiro teased his lips apart with a slick tongue. They both tasted like skin and sweat and it was so, so right. 

“Want you to do it,” Adam murmured, popping the bottle open and sliding his free hand between them to take Shiro’s own. Lube spilled over scarred fingers and they kissed again, didn’t _stop_ kissing until Adam was clawing at Shiro’s shoulder and fucking himself back onto that hand, too drunk on proximity to coordinate his lips. 

“That’s it,” Shiro breathed, the curl and pump of his fingers growing more eager as Adam tensed against him, muffling a moan into his neck. The smaller man shook, rocking and hungry at the familiar but well-missed burn of being wheedled open and taken apart. 

“Takashi,” He exhaled with an edge of desperation, tears searing the edges of his vision. _“Takashi._ I want you, fuck...”

“You have me.” Shiro hummed into his hair, fingers curving perfectly and jamming hard into his prostate. Adam’s untouched cock dripped over his partner’s hip. “You’ve always had me, sweetheart.”

Another surge of guilt, quickly overwhelmed by the fiery need for more, for _deeper_. Adam dropped a hand between them again and gave Shiro’s cock a firm pump, leaning in to whisper in one perfect ear even as the man thrust up to meet him. 

“Wanted you every night...thought about this, you, here...holding me, feeling me, fucking m—”

He gasped, the words lost as Shiro flipped them and pinned him down into the bed, forcing his fingers in harder, faster, clearly eager to force an orgasm from him in the heat of the moment. Hazel eyes squeezed shut and his forearm fell across his mouth to mute his desperate cry, hips rising from the bed like he was a man possessed. 

His body hadn’t been nearly ready enough for this assault on his sanity.

“Yesyesyes— _fuck, Takashi,_ ” He chanted, tears pouring from his eyes and hand falling from his lover’s cock to clutch at the sheets. The older man shoved his other arm aside with passion Adam had missed dearly, a sob slipping out from between their mouths as he was kissed hard enough to bruise. 

Cum poured over his stomach in ribbons and he whimpered against warm lips, throwing his arm back up to loop around Shiro’s neck, drawing him close and keeping him there as those fingers continued to work him through his high. 

Their long kiss slowed before it broke with a shared moan, and Adam lowered his free hand to dance along his lover’s hipbone with an air of tenderness. 

“You too,” He whispered breathlessly after a brief stretch of comfortable silence, dazed from the intensity of the other’s touch. Shiro swallowed, withdrawing his fingers and bringing them up to swipe up the still-warm cum on dark skin. Adam shifted, watching, waiting, body buzzing with the way the other straddled his stomach and smeared the mess over his darkening shaft, stroking it once, twice.

“Tell me where you want it.”

Shiro’s voice was strained and thick with arousal, precum already flooding from the slit. Adam raked his nails down muscular thighs and then let them breeze back up again, staring up into his lover’s face with something like awe.

In that moment, hovering above him, scarred and radiant, his lover looked more godlike than human. A silvery lock clung to Shiro’s temple and it was an effort to look away and meet his eyes.

“Anywhere.”

Shiro tensed, twisting his hand over the head before pushing his hips forward and fucking into his hand. The younger stared, enraptured at the sight and recalling distinctly just how it felt to have the girth of it spreading him open.

“Just like that,” Adam whispered, voice low and eager. He’d only just come but he knew he could take it, could feel his lower half clenching around the emptiness. Before he could even hope to insist that Shiro fill him, the older man’s hand gave another strong twist and his head bowed in rapture, hips pressing up and cum spurting over a flushed russet chest.

“Fuck, fuck...yesss—” Shiro hissed, and Adam watched him come with reverence, tears stinging at his eyes again. It was a beautiful sight, one he’d missed.

“So good, you’re so good...” Adam exhaled softly, letting the other man bask in his orgasm. Shiro rocked into his fist, right shoulder twitching as though he wanted to reach out and touch something. 

After a long moment, Shiro shifted back and lowered his head, kissing sloppily along a sepia throat and clavicle, intent on cleaning up his mess. Adam laid beneath him, hands carding through diamond-bright hair, and wondered how he’d ever thought he could live without this man.

* * *

“So,” Adam laughed humorlessly from his place tucked safely against Shiro’s firm chest. “You really _did_ die.”

Shiro hummed, his thumb rubbing tender circles into his shoulder. Adam buried his face in a patch of scars that hadn’t been there years prior, lashes low and skin chilled with drying sweat. He drew the comforter up over both of them, pressing himself into Shiro’s side.

“I probably should have listened.”

“What?”

“When you told me not to go.” 

Adam snorted, more disappointed in himself than he could have ever been with Shiro. 

“There are plenty of planets out there that would disagree, planets you rescued. You save people Shiro, it’s what you do.”

Dark eyes lowered, and their gazes met again. 

“You saved _me_. Over and over.”

Shiro frowned at the words, looking pained. 

“And then I left you.” 

Adam smiled weakly. “You were dying. You...it was wrong of me. Holding our relationship over your head.”

Shiro turned his gaze upward, staring at the ceiling of their once-shared quarters.

“You wanted me safe.”

“Yeah.” Adam admitted quietly. “And I wanted you _here_. That wasn’t my call to make.”

Shiro brought his remaining hand up to Adams jaw, tipping his head to catch him in a slow kiss. The younger sank into the contact, heart constricted as a warm body rose above his, pressing him down into the mattress and pulling him apart again.

They knew it wasn’t over.

* * *

after the battle 

* * *

“How is he?” Adam asked in a rush even as he hurried over to Keith, eyes wide and searching. The shorter man stepped forward to meet him, laying a hand on his shoulder and offering a weak smile.

“Alive. Safe. He’s being looked over but you can see him soon. Sendak...didn’t hold back, so he’ll need a few days to recover before he’s allowed to move freely.”

Alive. Safe. Alive. Safe.

“Alive.” Adam breathed, biting his lip and looking down at the glossy floor. It blurred, shifting like dunes in a dessert. Keith’s expression softened and Adam rushed him in a hug, immediately drawing a weak gasp from his throat.

“Earth...really has people feeling affectionate.” He laughed, squeezing the older officer back loosely. “Between you and Hunk, I think I’ve gotten a lifetime supply.”

“Thank you, Keith. _Thank_ you.”

The shorter man’s face warmed, arms tightening around a firm back. He had a feeling he wasn’t being thanked for the hug.

* * *

Shiro awoke after two long days of unconsciousness and a disconcerting amount of seizures, a throaty groan slipping from him as he tried to lift his head. 

“Hey, relax. Take it easy.” A familiar voice, one he’d heard echoing in his mind for months on end.

“Adam.” Shiro sighed, laying his head back down with a warm hand to guide it. Adam withdrew his hand from behind his sore neck and brushed his thumb along the stubble lining his sharp jaw. A smile curved across pale lips, tired eyes sliding open. 

Hazel found slate from a chair beside the bed, imploring and misty. Shiro's heart ached at the way the soft skin along amber lashes had dulled in the way that only a sleepless night could bring.

“Hi.” 

Shiro grinned weakly. “Hi.”

Their flesh hands met, fingers intertwining as though they’d never been apart. Shiro’s new arm gleamed under the fluorescent lights as he reached up and straightened the other pilot’s glasses. From the door, Allura smiled to herself before stepping inside. 

“We were wondering when you’d finally wake up. We couldn’t exactly stick you in a pod.”

“Princess,” Shiro greeted, tearing his gaze slowly from Adam’s face to address her. “How are the paladins? And the MFE pilots—”

“Hush,” She soothed, sitting herself on the edge of the bed opposite Adam. “They're fine. You did something truly amazing out there, Shiro.”

“I wasn’t alone. Keith, the Altas crew, everyone was incredible.” Shiro shook his head weakly, unwilling to take more credit than he was owed. Allura’s emotive eyes crinkled delicately at the corners.

“You’re right. _We_ did something amazing.” 

Adam’s hand rose to brush his fringe from his brow. Shiro turned his head, amazed to see the man he loved, always so calm and rational, watching him with a tired smile and tears painting steady trails along his cheeks. In his periphery he could see the other paladins leaning against the doorway, peering in with exhausted smiles. 

There was still so much to sort out, so much to do, but for the time being, he was home, safe and warm with the people he cherished most. 

It was enough.

* * *

* * *

Kudos and comments make my day; thank you so much for reading.

EDIT // That prequel I mentioned is up now, so check it out in Part 2 of this series; there's potential for a third installment if you guys are interested, let me know!


End file.
